Doriano Carta

I’ve always been a fan of XTC but this controversial song called “Dear God” sure got under my skin because it went contrary to everything I believed in. Yes, I’m a believer so this atheist anthem bothered me big time, brother. However, I can’t say that I didn’t find the song fascinating and at times thought-provoking and darn it enjoyable. The music video was also very well done, showing the little boy and the family in the tree and all the symbolism regarding the original sin and all that. Truly a brilliant work of art the music and the video.

However, despite all of the valid questions raised in the song and all of the statements made against the existence of an all-mighty supreme being, I still believe in God, more than ever. Still, this is a great topic for debate. It’s sure to get people talking. Tell me what you think.

Dear god,
Hope you got the letter,
And I pray you can make it better down here.
I don’t mean a big reduction in the price of beer,
But all the people that you made in your image,
See them starving on their feet,
cause they don’t get enough to eat
From god,
I cant believe in you.
Dear god,
Sorry to disturb you,
But I feel that I should be heard loud and clear.
We all need a big reduction in amount of tears,
And all the people that you made in your image,
See them fighting in the street,
cause they cant make opinions meet,
About god,
I cant believe in you.
Did you make disease, and the diamond blue?
Did you make mankind after we made you?
And the devil too!
Dear god,
Don’t know if you noticed,
But your name is on a lot of quotes in this book.
Us crazy humans wrote it, you should take a look,
And all the people that you made in your image,
Still believing that junk is true.
Well I know it ain’t and so do you,
Dear god,
I cant believe in,
I don’t believe in,
I wont believe in heaven and hell.
No saints, no sinners,
No devil as well.
No pearly gates, no thorny crown.
You’re always letting us humans down.
The wars you bring, the babes you drown.
Those lost at sea and never found,
And its the same the whole world round.
The hurt I see helps to compound,
That the father, son and holy ghost,
Is just somebody’s unholy hoax,
And if you’re up there you’ll perceive,
That my hearts here upon my sleeve.
If there’s one thing I don’t believe in…
Its you,
Dear god.

I’ve always loved “Mystic Pizza” (1988) which starred a young unknown beauty named Julia Roberts. It was an enchanting story about sisters and friends coming of age while working at a quaint pizzeria. Lots of other wonderful performances as well from the cast including Annabeth Gish, Lili taylor and Adam Storke.

One of the main storylines includes Julia Roberts relationship with a rich boyfriend and her insecurities regarding the fact that she doesn’t believe he could ever love a “poor Portguese girl”. Another one is Annabeth Gish’s infatuation with the married man that she babysits for. The other main thread involves Lily Taylor’s cold feet about getting married.

Here’s the Trailer

 
Here’s a scene where Julia loses it when she catches her new boyfriend cheating on her, or so she thought.

20 years later, an update on the movie and its cast members

Rick Springfield is known for other hits such as “Jesse’s Girl” but for me “Celebrate Youth” is his best song ever. I just love the message it tells as well as the music and the video. Rick was really into Tao and spiritualism at that time and it was clearly evident in this song and the album it came from, “Tao”.

I really like the following lines because I’ve always felt this way about the elderly. I can see the boy in them or the girl.
The converse is true too. I can almost see the adult that a child will become.

I can see the older man
Sometimes in the older man
I still see the young boy
Burning in his eye
And locked up here inside our spirit
Is the child that we are, hear it
Some of us will always fear it
And some will heed the cry

The chorus is the real power of the song as it talks about celebrating our youth and how we need to help prepare them for the future. Such a great message and song.

Celebrate Youth

I can see the older man
Looking at the younger man
I can see the younger man
Looking at the boy
Over there the older woman
Is looking at the younger woman
I can see the younger woman
Looking at the girl
cause every man sees
In the younger man the hope
Every woman sees
In the younger girl the dream
Everybody lives
The pride and passion of the young
From the womb to the tomb
We will remember what it means
So celebrate youth (celebrate)
Those who have it (young ones)
Celebrate youth (celebrate)
Give them sight
The future of the worlds in the (celebrate)
Hands of children (young ones)
So celebrate youth (celebrate)
Teach them right
Looking in a childs eye
Theres no hate and theres no lie
Theres no black and theres no white
I can see the older man
Sometimes in the older man
I still see the young boy
Burning in his eye
And locked up here inside our spirit
Is the child that we are, hear it
Some of us will always fear it
And some will heed the cry
But everyone sees
In the younger one the hope
Everybody sees
In the younger one the dream
Everybody lives
The pride and passion of the young
From the womb to the tomb
We will remember what it means
So celebrate youth (celebrate)
Those who have it (young ones)
Celebrate youth (celebrate)
Give them sight
The future of the worlds in the (celebrate)
Hands of children (young ones)
So celebrate youth (celebrate)
Teach them right
Looking in a childs face
Theres no pride and no disgrace
Theres no struggle, theres no fight
Everybody sees
In the younger one the hope
Everybody sees
In the younger one the dream
Everybody lives
The pride and passion of the young
From the womb to the tomb
We will remember what it means
Looking in a childs eye
Theres no hate and theres no lie
Theres no black and theres no white
So celebrate youth (celebrate)
Those who have it (young ones)
Celebrate youth (celebrate)
Give them sight
The future of the worlds in the (celebrate)
Hands of children (young ones)
So celebrate youth (celebrate)
Teach them right
Looking in a childs eye
Theres no hate and theres no lie
Theres no black and theres no white

Everyone knows that plagiarism is bad and even illegal. However, some people tend to think it’s more acceptable if the stolen content comes from an online resource such as a blog or social network. It’s a disturbing attitude that continues to spread as increasing numbers are helping themselves to other people’s work. Don’t they have any shame or any shred of dignity?

I’m not referring to Blog Scrapers or Splogs which are those blatant copycat blogs that steal content from other sites. Those don’t normally last long thanks to the emergence of powerful search tools and trackbacks within blogs. The more disturbing trend is the way bloggers are copying one another and covering the same subject matter almost verbatim. Perhaps it’s because they’re using the same press releases or even worse, other blog posts about the same topic.

Look, I understand the nature of the beast when it comes to tech blogs because I’ve written a ton of posts for such entities like Mashable.com. I know that the same press releases are sent to several blogs at the same time which explains why the same service is covered by so many different blogs at the same time. However, the goal should always be to craft content that’s as original as possible. By and large, I think the more successful blogs do a great job covering things with their own voice.

So it’s not really the elite blogs that fall victim to this trap most of the time. It’s basically the small to medium sized blogs that either unintentionally replicate without permission (being ever so kind there, huh?) or intentionally copy someone else’s work. Either way, it means less original material out there in the cloud and more regurgitated content and in many cases stolen material. It’s a lose-lose-lose situation for all involved: The original blogger, the copycat blogger and most importantly of all, the reader.

ReTweet or Surrender!

This practice of passing off someone else’s words as your own doesn’t stop at blogs. The same insidious crime occurs in many other forums as well. For example, people perform micro-plagiarism all the time on micro-logging services such as Twitter, Identica, Utterli and Pownce (R.I.P). Just because the theft is accomplished in 140 characters or less does not excuse the behavior. No matter what the size, a crime is a crime.

Let me give you some examples. I’ve seen some people (some well known and admired) take tweets from others with much smaller followings and share the same exact content with their own much larger audience. It always baffles me as to why they don’t simply retweet that person and give them some credit. Sometimes a tweet a changed but the main point of the message is shared. In that case, the person that originally shared the tweet should receive a hat tip of some kind from the person sharing it with his network. Again, there’s no excuse for taking credit for it.

Obviously, most of the time the same thing will be shared online at the same time because people are reading the same news services and blogs. There’s no way to pinpoint who originally broke any kind of news or information. However, there are clear examples of those retweeting someone’s tweet without any credit. I see it happen a lot because I’m privy to many exclusive news items and I’ve seen that content shared without any hat tip to the one that originally shared.

The good news is that the new twitter search tool makes it easier than ever to find out who said what first on twitter. The same is happening with other platforms. This all means that these virtual vultures need to be careful about what they’re doing and who their ripping off. 

I love “Singing in the Rain” (1955) starring Gene Kelly. It’s one of the best movies ever made in my book. Even if you don’t love musicals, I think you’ll enjoy this classic masterpiece. What’s odd is that it didn’t win the Oscar for Best Picture but Kelly’s inferior “An American in Paris” did, almost as a make-up call.

In any event, the scene where Kelly performs in the rain is obviously my favorite part of the movie. I love it when it rains and find myself thinking of this movie and this scene many times. I know this number so well that I would love to perform it someday if it was ever possible. Funny enough, when I went to Disney World there was a Singing in the Rain area in Hollywood town. I was so tempted to make a fool of myself but I was talked out of it by the wife and kids. Oh well.

Here’s the original scene followed by a couple of wonderful modern variations! I really enjoyed the car commercial remix making Gene perform in modern hip hop!
The Usher dance was great too.

Here’s the original scene. It just makes me smile and feel good every time.

Here’s the fantastic remix with Kelly popping and locking.

Here’s Usher’s version

Here’s Gene vs Usher

OK this one is just silly

Bob Seger’s “Night Moves” from 1977 was allegedly inspired by the movie “American Graffiti” and based on Bob Seger’s true experiences. The music video wasn’t made until 1994 when Seger released a Greatest Hits package. It’s a wonderful little movie featuring a young Matt LeBlanc (Joey from Friends) and Daphne Zuniga.

I was a little too tall
Could’ve used a few pounds
Tight pants points hardly reknown
She was a black-haired beauty with big dark eyes
And points all her own sitting way up high
Way up firm and high
Out past the cornfields where the woods got heavy
Out in the back seat of my 60 chevy
Workin on mysteries without any clues
Workin on our night moves
Tryin to make some front page drive-in news
Workin on our night moves
In the summertime
In the sweet summertime
We were’nt in love, oh no, far from it
We were’nt searchin for some pie in the sky summit
We were just young and restless and bored
Livin by the sword
And we’d steal away every chance we could
To the backroom, to the alley or the trusty woods
I used her, she used me
But neither one cared
We were gettin our share
Workin on our night moves
Tryin to lose the awkward teenage blues
Workin on our night moves
And it was summertime
And oh the wonder
We felt the lightning
And we waited on the thunder
Waited on the thunder
I awoke last night to the sound of thunder
How far off I sat and wondered
Started humming a song from 1962
Ain’t it funny how the night moves
When you just don’t seem to have as much to lose
Strange how the night moves
With autumn closing in

John Waite’s “Don’t Lose Any Sleep” is the ultimate breakup song for the sensitive male. I remember loving this song whenever I went through a painful breakup. It was edifying and somehow made me feel better. I like the sarcastic and sinister tone to it all and the passion John brings to the performance.

@NowSourcing from Twitter shared a link to a demo of a new game called Crayon Physics that made my jaw drop which doesn’t happen very often. You have to see it to believe it, really. You draw objects and the law of physics are applied including gravity. The implications of this type of technology are incredible. Think of all the other types of applications and web services that could use this kind of technology? Exciting stuff, folks.

Here’s the new version of Crayon Physics which improves upon their freeware version.

Here’s a demo of the freeware version which you can download here.

Here’s another Supertramp song called “Breakfast in America” that I’ve always loved for some reason. It came out 30 years ago in 1979 but it still holds up well. All classics do, huh?  It was the name of the album which produced several big hits. In addition to the title track, there was also “The Logical Song”, “Goodbye Stranger” and “Take the Long Way Home”. A few years later they did “It’s Raining Again” which I covered here recently.

Here’s the lead singer Roger Hodgson performing the same song almost three decades later live.
He still does a great job!

Breakfast in America

Take a look at my girlfriend
Shes the only one I got
Not much of a girlfriend
Never seem to get a lot
Take a jumbo across the water
Like to see america
See the girls in california
Im hoping its going to come true
But theres not a lot I can do
Could we have kippers for breakfast
Mummy dear, mummy dear
They got to have em in texas
Cos everyones a millionaire
Im a winner, Im a sinner
Do you want my autograph
Im a loser, what a joker
Im playing my jokes upon you
While theres nothing better to do
Dont you look at my girlfriend
Shes the only one I got
Not much of a girlfriend
Never seem to get a lot
Take a jumbo cross the water
Like to see america
See the girls in california
Im hoping its going to come true
But theres not a lot I can do

Now that Google has officially pulled the plug on their notebook service, Zoho Notebook appears prime to become the heir to the throne. While they’ve been very close in regards to features, Google Notebook has always worked slightly better when it came to ease of use and quicker access from any website.

All that has changed thanks to a new Firefox plugin called the Zoho Notebook Helper. There’s also a new Beta version for those of you that don’t mind trying beta releases.  This plugin makes adding content to your notebook much quicker by allowing you to simply right-click on any webpage and select the “add to Zoho Notebook”.

There are buttons on the toolbar that allow you to do other things quicker too such as adding text or comments.

Zoho has done a great job with this plugin as their Notebook service looks to become the current leader for capturing web content. They will have to duke it out with other services such as EverNote but this new feature will give them a puncher’s chance this time. Also in their corner is the fact that they’re free while EverNote’s full service isn’t.